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Once as a child he had sat upon a yellow dune by the sea in theto fill a sieve with sand, because soet a dih with a hot whispering His hands were tired, the sand was boiling, the sieve was empty Seated there in the midst of July, without a sound, he felt the tears move down his cheeks
Now as the vacuuh the dead cellars of town, jolting hiic of that sieve, and he looked down and saw that he was carrying the Bible open There were people in the suction train but he held the book in his hands and the silly thought came to him, if you read fast and read all, maybe some of the sand will stay in the sieve But he read and the worlds fell through, and he thought, in a few hours, there will be Beatty, and here will bethis over, so no phrase must escape me, each line must be memorized I will myself to do it
He clenched the book in his fists
Trumpets blared
"Denham's Dentifrice"
Shut up, thought Montag Consider the lilies of the field
"Denham's Dentifrice"
They toil not--
"Denham's--"
Consider the lilies of the field, shut up, shut up
"Dentifrice!"
He tore the book open and flicked the pages and felt of them as if he were blind, he picked at the shape of the individual letters, not blinking
"Denham's Spelled: D-E-N--"
They toil not, neither do they
A fierce whisper of hot sand through empty sieve